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Perfect Substitute Of Sugar ?

Sugar, along with salt and oil (fat), are the well known secret sauce for delicious food. It was human nature and food industry has been using them to get millions of customers hooked with their product. People have been seeking for healthier substitute for decades.

You can see so many choices of non-sugar sweetener in the market from various companies: Splenda, Equal, Sweet’N Low, Ideal. And many major marketing effort for low calorie beverages. NY Times has an interesting article on the current development in the segment. In the nutshell, here are the several main alternatives for sugar.

Sucralose: An chlorinated sugar made from sugar

Pro: 600x sweeter than sugar. Non-caloric (because majority of the ingested sucralose is not broken down by the body). Heat stable, can be used in bakery and fried food

Con: Potential environment issue. Some bitterness.

Products: Splenda

Stevia: Very popular zero-calorie sweetener from leaf of a South America shrub (Stevia rebaudiana).

Looks like these could all be perfect substitute for sugar. As for cakes, Consumer Report had an old review showing that the non-sugar substitute could not provide matching flavor and texture and sugar based.

But I guess the manufactures are also trying to improve their product and you would need to try for yourself to see it it work great.